Hedera has launched the Scaffold-HBAR Template Bounty, a developer competition aimed at expanding the reusable project templates available across its ecosystem. The initiative offers a $10,000 prize pool for developers who create production-quality templates that can serve as starting points for applications built on Hedera. Registration opened September 14, while the two-week build and submission period begins September 21.
According to Hedera’s official bounty announcement, Scaffold-HBAR allows developers to generate functioning Hedera applications from a single command, reducing the setup work typically required to configure frameworks, frontend packages and blockchain integrations. The tool currently includes eight built-in templates, while the bounty is intended to add community-created external templates hosted through public GitHub repositories.
Developers Must Build Working Hedera Templates
Eligible submissions must be structured as public repositories capable of running through the Scaffold-HBAR command-line interface. Each project requires a valid template.json manifest, README and AGENTS.md, alongside a monorepo structure separating frontend and contract packages. Supported stacks include Next.js with either Hardhat or Foundry, using npm or Yarn workspaces and Node 20.18.3 or later.
The bounty also requires genuine blockchain functionality rather than a purely illustrative template. Every submission must integrate at least one Hedera service and provide evidence of a verifiable testnet transaction through Hashscan or a mirror node. Eligible integrations include Hedera Token Service, Consensus Service, Schedule Service or Solidity smart contracts, while projects can also incorporate DEXs, bridges, oracles, lending protocols and decentralized storage.
Submissions first pass through a mechanical eligibility review before reaching the judging panel. Projects must install, lint and build cleanly from a fresh scaffold, successfully launch their core application routes, contain no committed secrets and be released as original work under an MIT license. Every template clearing this stage will be added to Hedera’s documentation with the author credited, regardless of whether it ultimately wins a monetary prize.
Five Templates Can Win $2,000 Each
Qualifying projects are then evaluated under a 100-point scoring framework. Ecosystem integration carries the largest weighting at 35 points, followed by documentation quality at 30 points, code quality at 20 points and depth of Hedera service integration at 15 points. Hedera says superficial integrations will receive lower scores than functionality that depends meaningfully on the external protocol or native service being incorporated.
The $10,000 prize pool is divided into five awards of $2,000. Only submissions that clear the eligibility gate can receive a prize, and unallocated awards will remain unpaid if fewer than five qualifying templates are selected. Hedera Harness, a development tool designed to provide AI coding agents with Hedera-specific context and validation, is recommended but not mandatory.
Developers have until October 4 at 11:59 PM ET to submit their projects, with judging scheduled from October 5 through October 16. The winners will be announced October 19, while every qualifying template will remain accessible through Hedera’s documentation as a reusable development starting point. The practical measure of the initiative will be how many of those templates continue attracting developer use after the bounty itself ends.